The
Mediterranean raceMediterranean race (also Mediterranid race) is one of the
sub-races into which the
Caucasian raceCaucasian race was categorised by most
anthropologists in the late 19th to mid-20th centuries.[1] According
to various definitions, it was said to be prevalent in Southern
Europe, parts of Western Asia, western
Central AsiaCentral Asia and parts of South
Asia, in
North AfricaNorth Africa and the Horn of Africa. To a lesser extent,
certain populations of people in parts of the
British IslesBritish Isles and
Germany, despite living far from the Mediterranean, were deemed as
potentially having some Mediterranean elements in their population,
such as
BavariaBavaria and Wales.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] It is characterized by
medium or shorter stature, long (dolichocephalic) or moderate
(mesocephalic) skull, a narrow and often slightly aquiline nose,
prevalence of dark hair and eyes,[9] and pink to reddish to light or
dark brown skin tone; olive complexion being especially common.[10]

These differentiations occurred following long-standing claims about
the alleged differences between the Nordic and the Mediterranean
people. Such debates arose from responses to ancient writers who had
commented on differences between northern and southern Europeans. The
Greek and Roman people considered the Germanic and Celtic peoples to
be wild, red haired barbarians.
AristotleAristotle contended that the Greeks
were an ideal people because they possessed a medium skin-tone, in
contrast to pale northerners. By the 19th century, long-standing
cultural and religious differences between Protestant northwestern
Europe and the Roman Catholic south were being reinterpreted in racial
terms.[11]
19th century[edit]
In the 19th century, the division of humanity into distinct races
became a matter for scientific debate. In 1870,
Thomas HuxleyThomas Huxley argued
that there were four basic racial categories (Xanthochroic, Mongoloid,
Australioid and Negroid). The Xanthochroic race were the "fair whites"
of north and central Europe. According to Huxley,

On the south and west this type comes into contact and mixes with the
"Melanochroi," or "dark whites"...In these regions are found, more or
less mixed with Xanthochroi and Mongoloids, and extending to a greater
or less distance into the conterminous Xanthochroic, Mongoloid,
NegroidNegroid and Australioid areas, the men whom I have termed Melanochroi,
or dark whites. Under its best form this type is exhibited by many
Irishmen, Welshmen and Bretons, by Spaniards, South Italians, Greeks,
Armenians, Arabs and high-caste Brahmins...I am much disposed to think
that the Melanochroi are the result of an intermixture between the
Xanthochroi and the Australoids. It is to the Xanthochroi and
Melanochroi, taken together, that the absurd denomination of
"Caucasian" is usually applied.[12]

By the late 19th century, Huxley's Xanthochroi group had been
redefined as the "Nordic" race, whereas his Melanochroi became the
Mediterranean race. As such, Huxley's Melanochroi eventually also
comprised various other dark Caucasoid populations, including the
Hamites (e.g. Berbers, Somalis, northern Sudanese, ancient Egyptians)
and Moors.[13]
William Z. Ripley's The Races of Europe (1899) created a tripartite
model, which was later popularised by Madison Grant. It divided
Europeans into three main subcategories: Teutonic, Alpine and
Mediterranean.[14] Ripley noted that although the European Caucasoid
populations largely spoke Aryan (Indo-European) languages, the oldest
extant language in Europe was Basque. He also acknowledged the
existence of non-European Caucasoids, including various populations
that did not speak Aryan languages, such as Hamito-Semitic and Turkish
groups.[15]

Distribution of European racial types, from Madison Grant's The
Passing of the Great Race (1916).
Mediterranean raceMediterranean race is shown in
yellow; green indicates the Alpine race; bright red is the Nordic
race.

In Germany, Britain and the USA, it became common for white
supremacists to promote the merits of the light-coloured hair,
light-coloured eyes
Nordic raceNordic race as the most advanced of human
population groups: the "master race". Southern/Eastern Europeans were
deemed to be inferior, an argument that dated back to Arthur de
Gobineau's Nordicist claims that racial mixing was responsible for the
decline of the Roman Empire.[17] However, in southern Europe itself
alternative models were developed which stressed the merits of
Mediterranean peoples, drawing on established traditions dating from
ancient and
RenaissanceRenaissance claims about the superiority of civilisation
in the south.[citation needed]
Giuseppe Sergi's much-debated book The Mediterranean Race (1901)
argued that the
Mediterranean raceMediterranean race had likely originated from a common
ancestral stock that evolved in the
SaharaSahara region in Africa, and which
later spread from there to populate North Africa, the Horn of Africa
and the circum-Mediterranean region.[18] Sergi added that the
Mediterranean raceMediterranean race "in its external characters is a brown human
variety, neither white nor negroid, but pure in its elements, that is
to say not a product of the mixture of Whites with Negroes or negroid
peoples."[19] He explained this taxonomy as inspired by an
understanding of "the morphology of the skull as revealing those
internal physical characters of human stocks which remain constant
through long ages and at far remote spots[...] As a zoologist can
recognise the character of an animal species or variety belonging to
any region of the globe or any period of time, so also should an
anthropologist if he follows the same method of investigating the
morphological characters of the skull[...] This method has guided me
in my investigations into the present problem and has given me
unexpected results which were often afterwards confirmed by
archaeology or history."[20]
According to Sergi, the
Mediterranean raceMediterranean race was the "greatest race of
the world" and was singularly responsible for the most accomplished
civilizations of antiquity, including those of Ancient Egypt, Ancient
Greece, Ancient Persia, Ancient Rome, Carthage, Hittite Anatolia, Land
of Punt,
MesopotamiaMesopotamia and Phoenicia. The four great branches of the
Mediterranean stock were the Libyans, the Ligurians, the Pelasgians
and the Iberians.[21] Ancient Egyptians, Ethiopians and Somalis were
considered by Sergi as Hamites, themselves constituting a
Mediterranean variety and one situated close to the cradle of the
stock.[22] To Sergi, the Semites were a branch of the Eurafricans who
were closely related to the Mediterraneans.[23] He also asserted that
the light-skinned
Nordic raceNordic race descended from the Eurafricans.[24]
According to Robert Ranulph Marett, "it is in
North AfricaNorth Africa that we
must probably place the original hotbed of that Mediterranean
race".[25]
Later in the 20th century, the concept of a distinctive Mediterranean
race was still considered useful by theorists such as Earnest Hooton
in Up From the Ape (1931) and
Carleton S. CoonCarleton S. Coon in his revised edition
of Ripley's Races of Europe (1939). These writers subscribed to
Sergi's depigmentation theory that the
Nordic raceNordic race was the northern
variety of Mediterraneans that lost pigmentation through natural
selection due to the environment.[26]
According to Coon, the "homeland and cradle" of the Mediterranean race
was in
North AfricaNorth Africa and Southwest Asia, in the area from
MoroccoMorocco to
Afghanistan. He further stated that Mediterraneans formed the major
population element in
PakistanPakistan and North India.[8] Coon also argued
that smaller Mediterraneans had travelled by land from the
Mediterranean basin north into Europe in the
MesolithicMesolithic era. Taller
Mediterraneans (Atlanto-Mediterraneans) were Neolithic seafarers who
sailed in reed-type boats and colonised the Mediterranean basin from a
Near Eastern origin. He argued that they also colonised Britain &
Ireland where their descendants may be seen today, characterized by
dark brown hair, dark eyes and robust features. He stressed the
central role of the Mediterraneans in his works, claiming "The
Mediterraneans occupy the center of the stage; their areas of greatest
concentration are precisely those where civilisation is the oldest.
This is to be expected, since it was they who produced it and it, in a
sense, that produced them".[8]
C. G. SeligmanC. G. Seligman also asserted that "it must, I think, be recognized
that the
Mediterranean raceMediterranean race has actually more achievement to its
credit than any other, since it is responsible for by far the greater
part of Mediterranean civilization, certainly before 1000 B.C. (and
probably much later), and so shaped not only the Aegean cultures, but
those of Western as well as the greater part of Eastern Mediterranean
lands, while the culture of their near relatives, the Hamitic
pre-dynastic Egyptians, formed the basis of that of Egypt."[27]
In the USA, the idea that the
Mediterranean raceMediterranean race included certain
populations on the African continent was taken up in the early 20th
century by African-American writers such as W. E. B. Du Bois, who used
it to attack white supremacist ideas about racial "purity". Such
publications as the Journal of Negro History stressed the
cross-fertilization of cultures between
AfricaAfrica and Europe, and adopted
Sergi's view that the "civilizing" race had originated in Africa
itself.[28]
H. G. WellsH. G. Wells referred to the
Mediterranean raceMediterranean race as the Iberian
race.[29]
After the 1960s, the concept of an exact
Mediterranean raceMediterranean race fell out
of favor, though the distinctive features of Mediterranean populations
continued to be recognized.[30][31][32][33]
Physical traits[edit]

Mediterranean type from France, cephalic index 76

The
Mediterranean raceMediterranean race was traditionally regarded as one of the
primary Caucasoid races next to the Nordic, Alpine and Armenoid (Beals
and Hoijer, An Introduction to Anthropology – 1953).[34]
The first physical and social description of the Mediterranean race
(then termed "Celtic race") was given by the Scottish scientist
William Rhind in 1851. In -Section XV – The
Caucasian raceCaucasian race and its
sub-races- Rhind gave the following description:[35]
"The Celtic Race (anc. Galatae, Pyreni), are characterised by a
well-formed head, elongated from front to back, and moderate in
breadth; face oval; features well defined and elegantly formed;
complexion dark; dark brown or black eyes; black hair turning early
grey; form middle size, handsome; feet and hands small. Mental powers
quick, active and energetic, rather than profound. Passions and
affections strong. Fond of society, but not forgetful of injuries.
Monarchial in their governments. They occupy the southern and insular
parts of Europe."
According to William Z. Ripley, the marked features of the
Mediterranean raceMediterranean race were dark hair – dark eyes – long face –
dolichocephalic skull and a variable narrow nose.[16]
C. S. Coon wrote that marked Mediterranean features included skin
color ranging "from pink or peaches-and-cream to a light brown", a
relatively prominent and aquiline nose, considerable body hair, and
dark brown to black hair.[36]
According to Renato Biasutti, frequent Mediterranean traits included
"skin color 'matte'-white or brunet-white, chestnut or dark chestnut
eyes and hair, not excessive pilosity; medium-low stature (162), body
of moderately longilinear forms; dolichomorphic skull (78) with
rounded occiput; oval face; leptorrhine nose (68) with straight spine,
horizontal or inclined downwards base of the septum; large open
eyes."[37]
See also[edit]

Anthropometry
Mediterraneanism
Olive skin

Notes[edit]

^ Karim Murji, John Solomos (2005). Racialization: Studies In Theory
And Practice. Oxford University Press. p. 215.
ISBN 0199257035.
^ John Higham (2002). Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American
Nativism, 1860–1925. Rutgers University Press. p. 273.
ISBN 0-8135-3123-3.
^ Bryan S Turner (1998). The Early Sociology of Class. Taylor &
Francis. p. 241. ISBN 0-415-16723-X.
^ The Races of Europe by Carlton Stevens Coon. From Chapter XI: The
Mediterranean World – Introduction: "The next strip to follow, in a
geographical sense, would be the whole highland belt of central Europe
stretching over to the Balkans, to Asia Minor, and across to the
Caucasus and Turkestan. This second zone, however, is one of immense
racial complexity. In it various branches of the greater Mediterranean
family, of Neolithic date and later, have been modified by combining
in various proportions with each other and with the autochthonous
Alpine race. The key to the complexity of this zone lies in the
genetic action of this last entity, which is apparently a reduced,
somewhat foetalized, or more highly evolved branch of the old
Paleolithic stock than those which we have been studying in the north.
Since, however, it is the action of this element upon the
Mediterranean family which is important here, it will be easier to
study this zone after having surveyed the population of a third belt,
that occupied by the purest living representatives of the
Mediterranean race. This third racial zone stretches from
SpainSpain across
the Straits of Gibraltar to Morocco, and thence along the southern
Mediterranean shores into Arabia, East Africa, Mesopotamia, and the
Persian highlands; and across
AfghanistanAfghanistan into India. This zone is one
of comparative racial simplicity. In it the brunet Mediterranean race
lives today in its various regional forms without, in most cases, the
complication of the Paleolithic survivals and reemergences which have
so confused the racial picture on the ground of Europe itself. Only in
the mountains of
MoroccoMorocco and Algeria, and in the Canary Islands, is
such a survival of any importance. The Careful study of living
populations of the
Mediterranean raceMediterranean race in its early homelands will do
much to simplify the task which lies ahead."
^ The Races of Europe by Carleton Stevens Coon. From Chapter X: The
British Isles: "The Neolithic economy was probably first brought to
Britain by the bearers of the Windmill Hill culture from the
Continent, and they in turn were members of the group which had
invaded western Europe from
North AfricaNorth Africa by way of Gibraltar. The
racial type to which these Windmill Hill people presumably belonged
was a small Mediterranean, but there is little or no direct skeletal
evidence from England to confirm this. By far the most important
Neolithic movement into Great Britain, and into Ireland as well, came
by sea from the eastern Mediterranean lands, using
SpainSpain as a halting
point on the way. It was this invasion which passed up the Irish
Channel to western and northern Scotland, and around to Denmark and
Sweden. The settlers who came by sea were the Megalithic people, and
belonged to a clearly differentiated variety of tall, extremely
long-headed Mediterranean, which was presumably for the most part
brunet. This racial group furnished both Great Britain and Ireland,
which consisted, before their arrival, of nearly empty land, with a
numerous and civilized population which has left many descendants
today."
^ Patrizia Palumbo. A Place in the Sun:
AfricaAfrica in Italian Colonial
Culture from Post-Unification to the Present. University of California
Press, 2003. P. 66.
^ Anne Maxwell. Picture Imperfect: Photography and Eugenics,
1870–1940. Paperback edition. Sussex Academic Press, 2010. P. 150.
^ a b c "Our area, from
MoroccoMorocco to Afghanistan, is the homeland and
cradle of the Mediterranean race. Mediterraneans are found also in
Spain, Portugal, most of Italy, Greece and the Mediterranean islands,
and in all these places, as in Southwest Asia, they form the major
genetic element in the local populations. In a dark-skinned and
finer-boned form they are also found as the major population element
in
PakistanPakistan and northern India ... The Mediterranean race, then, is
indigenous to, and the principal element in, the Southwest Asia, and
the greatest concentration of a highly evolved Mediterranean type
falls among two of the most ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, notably
the Arabs and the Jews (Although it may please neither party, this is
the truth.). The Mediterraneans occupy the center of the stage; their
areas of greatest concentration are precisely those where civilization
is the oldest. This is to be expected, since it was they who produced
it and it, in a sense, that produced them.", Carleton Coon, the Story
of the Middle East, 1958, pp. 154–157
^ C.S. Coon, Caravan : the Story of the Middle East, 1958, pp.
154-157
^ The Races of Europe by Carlton Stevens Coon.
^
G. W. F. HegelG. W. F. Hegel claimed that the Latin people maintained "the
principle of disharmony" in contrast to the Germans. Johann Fichte
asserted that the Mediterraneans were deficient because of the
corruption of their language. See Poliakov, L., The Aryan Myth, 1974
^ On the Geographical Distribution of the Chief Modifications of
Mankind, Journal of the Ethnological Society of London (1870)
^ Gregory, John Walter (1931). Race as a Political Factor. Watts &
Company. p. 19. Retrieved 8 May 2016.
^ William Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe: A Sociological Study (New
York: D. Appleton and Co., 1899)
^ Ripley, William Z. (1913). The races of Europe; a sociological study
(Lowell institute lectures) (PDF). K. Paul Trench, Trübner & co.,
ltd. Retrieved 8 May 2016.
^ a b Ripley (1899), The Races of Europe, p. 121; Synonyms column
shortened
^ See Gobineau and Chamberlain. Such ideas were repeated by Gobineau's
admirers such as
Houston Stewart ChamberlainHouston Stewart Chamberlain and
Richard WagnerRichard Wagner (in
his essay Herodom and Christianity), and later by the Nazis. See Der
Reichsführer SS/SS-Hauptamt, Rassenpolitik (SS handbook on race)
^ Giuseppe Sergi, The Mediterranean Race: A Study of the Origin of
European Peoples, (BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2008), pp.42-43.
^ Giuseppe Sergi, The Mediterranean Race: A Study of the Origin of
European Peoples, (BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2008), p.250.
^ Giuseppe Sergi, The Mediterranean Race: A Study of the Origin of
European Peoples, (Forgotten Books), p.36.
^ Giuseppe Sergi, The Mediterranean Race: A Study of the Origin of
European Peoples, (Forgotten Books), p.166.
^ Giuseppe Sergi, The Mediterranean Race: A Study of the Origin of
European Peoples, (Forgotten Books), pp.39-44.
^ Giuseppe Sergi, The Mediterranean Race: A Study of the Origin of
European Peoples, (BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2008), p.100.
^ Giuseppe Sergi, The Mediterranean Race: A Study of the Origin of
European Peoples, (BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2008), p.309.
^ Robert Ranulph Marett, Anthropology, Henry Holt, 1912, p.104
^ Melville Jacobs, Bernhard Joseph Stern. General anthropology. Barnes
& Noble, 1963. P. 57.
^ The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain
and Ireland, Vol. 54. (Jan. - Jun., 1924), p. 30.
^ The African Origin of the Grecian Civilization, Journal of Negro
History, 1917, pp. 334–344
^ Wells, H.G.
The Outline of HistoryThe Outline of History New York:1920 Doubleday & Co.
Volume I Chapter XI "The Races of Mankind" Pages 131–144 See Pages
98, 137, and 139
^ Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, "Dans le Bassin méditerranéen, la
ressemblance entre tous les peuples vivant des deux côtés de la mer
est remarquable" ("In the Mediterranean Basin, the similarity between
all peoples living on both sides of the sea is great"), Evolution
biologique, évolution culturelle (L'evoluzione della cultura), Odile
Jacob, 2005, p. 119
^ Jean-Michel Dugoujon, "Les populations du pourtour méditerranéen
forment une entité anthropologique de loin plus cohérente que celles
proposées par les découpages entre pays ou entre continents." ("The
people around the mediterranean sea form an anthropological entity
much more coherent than those proposed by the divisions between
countries and between continents."), Diversité des allotypes des
immunoglobulines d’une population berbère de la vallée de
Tacheddirt, Dugoujon, 2005
^ Eleven populations around the Mediterranean basin were analysed by
Tomas et al. 2008 (Catanzaro, Cosenza, Reggio di Calabria, Sicily from
the South of Italy; Valencia, Ibiza and Majorca from the East of
Spain; Tunisia; Morocco;
TurkeyTurkey and
IraqIraq and the genetic distance
between them was very low (except for Moroccans). Tunisians and Middle
Eastern populations did not show a significant level of
differentiation with northern populations. The conclusion
was :"Tunisians did not show a significant level of
differentiation with northern populations as mentioned by others.
(...) The genetic distance between populations in the Middle East and
the western part of the Mediterranean area was very low, most likely
reflecting the effect of the Neolithic Wave and recent migration
events. Only the Moroccan population showed a significant genetic
distance from the remaining Mediterranean populations including
populations that are geographically close to it, showing the
importance of the
Strait of GibraltarStrait of Gibraltar as a geographic barrier and
supporting the idea of a low impact of the Neolithic demic diffusion
and more recent migrations in North-West Africa", X-chromosome SNP
analyses in 11 human Mediterranean populations show a high overall
genetic homogeneity except in North-west Africans (Moroccans), Tomas
et al. 2008
^ "The genetic proximity observed between the Berbers and southern
Europeans reveals that these groups shared a common ancestor. Two
hypotheses are discussed: one would date these common origins in the
Upper Paleolithic with the expansion of anatomically modern humans,
from the
Near EastNear East to both shores of the Mediterranean Sea; the other
supports the Near Eastern origin, but would rather date it from the
Neolithic, around 10,000 years ago (Ammerman & Cavalli-Sforza
1973; Barbujani et al. 1994; Myles et al. 2005; Rando et al. 1998).
Common polymorphisms (i.e. those defining H and V lineages) between
Berbers and south Europeans also could have been introduced or
supported by genetic flows through the Straits of Gibraltar. For
example, genetic exchanges could have taken place during prehistory,
while European populations retreated from ice sheets and expanded from
refuge, around 15,000 years ago (as evidenced by the H and U5b
mitochondrial lineages).", The Complex and Diversified Mitochondrial
Gene Pool of Berber Populations, Coudray et al., december 2008
^ Nida, Eugene Albert (1954). Customs and Cultures. Pasadena.
^ Rhind, William (1851). Second-Class Book of Physical Geography.
Edinburgh.
^
Carleton S. CoonCarleton S. Coon on the Mediterranean Race – from C.S. Coon,
Caravan : the Story of the Middle East, 1958, pp. 154–157
^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on May 11, 2012.
Retrieved May 11, 2012.

References[edit]

Giuseppe Sergi. The Mediterranean Race: a Study of the Origins of
European Peoples. London: Walter Scott.